Thanks for the OpenWRT on VirtualBox link.  That sound like a large part of the work towards making something that would let a Windows laptop hook into a mesh network has already been done. 

I'm trying to figure out whether this would let the host OS (i.e. Windows) see the mesh, though.   You'd have to make the Windows partition "look into" the OpenWRT VM to find its  network to see the mesh.  There's sort of a loop condition there.  Windows would have to look into the VM for the network, and then the VM has to look back out to Windows to get its network.  

In theory, there's probably a way to make it work.  VirtualBox has a lot of configurability for stuff like that.

Even if that does let you connect, there's probably still a big chunk of work to make it a clean and easy install like the BBHN ports.

23:28 was the uptime this go round.

Started with a charged battery at 13.33v and ran it till it quit.  The router did handle traffic (Wifi) no lan clients,  during the time it was running I did check voltage during withn a DMM but didn't leave it connected. 

Running dual batteries should double the runtime but would also add to the weight of the box hanging from the pole.

Since it sunny outside I am going to hook it up and let the cell charge it with the sun and watch the voltage with the DMM.

Thanks for the info.  I've heard that one big problem with Android is that you have to get the wireless into ad hoc mode, and Android is deliberately designed to prevent that.   You'd have to find a workaround to force it into ad hoc mode.

Hi,

I have try to use existing application for Mesh Nodes for Android but without success.

I have setup with success my laptop with Ubuntu and add olsrd with configuration for BBHN and working nice with local BBHN on WRT54.

I have try use on MSWindows VitrualBOX to run BBHN image but to use this our developers BBHN must generate BBHN firmware image for x86 platform and we can use very simple run in VirtualBox on MS Windows run virtual Mesh Node to connect.  Below link howto:

http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/virtualbox

It will be nice in future have possibility use mobile devices like Android tablet, phone to use local BBHN.

Hello Clint,

Thanks that actually provides a bit of info as to why we are seeing what we are seeing.

So the LQ as displayed on that screen only looks at LQ which is the measure of how good YOUR NODE hears the REMOTE NODE.  

If you look on the OLSR status screen you will probably see a HIGH etx or even an infinite etx on DIRECT for the AE5CA node that cant hear you because the NLQ (You to the remote node)  is high and a good REMOTE path for it.

So in this case: your likely getting your HNA details through KF5NEP which may be getting low  on signal, especially its the node with the 0% LQ that you are seeing on the display (get the IP of the kF5NEP node to be sure)

Without at least one good bi-drectional link I cant guarantee that you to get all the packets you need to get name resolution in place (MPR selection can be at play here, only MPR nodes send TC/HNA/MID packets out to keep the duplicate flooding to a minimum  and I believe this will also include NAME SERVICE packets which are 100% needed  for name resolution)

So because of this you see IP addresses only until you can get a good link, once you have at least 1 good link the link changes to resolve names.

Keep an eye on the KF5NEP node's ip and see  if when once it shows up with a reasonable LQ and reasonable ETX that you actually start seeing names show up.

The big issue is the Gus's Nano Station is seeing my nodes on OHC (old Hillcrest) but the bullets and airgrids up there are not seeing Gus.  The only mesh node I can see getting through to Gus is HHE (new Hillcrest - East).  

The node is tying to send to a neighbor that doesn't see him directly.

We need to update the New Hillcrest to UBNT nodes and give Gus a better signal to latch onto.

Clint

The symptoms you describe sound a lot like an antenna aiming issue (not knowing who is in what path there)

I've worked with Clint and I know those OHC nodes were just upgraded last Sunday so this may be why your seeing them better now. Maybe other changes were done to the other nodes your speaking of as well.

SM1 and SM2: These show you have a reasonable connection ( 83-89% to OHC-168 31-41% to the OHC-OMNI and 42-52% on KF5NEP) I also note that as the OHC-OMNI went up the KF5NEP went down which may either be atmospheric or an antenna direction change.

SM3: For the first and third node this is EXACTLY as expected, names will NOT show up when the quality is so low.  the 2nd node is a bit more interesting in that it shows but doesn't have a name  and the link hasn't fully established. This photo actually looks like the node has just rebooted and is still syncing up and hasn't received the remote node list yet (takes a little bit of time)

Keep an eye on the RED led on the nano --- This led is illuminated when you have a connection established.

You may want to look and see if the node is rebooting after you log into it (you would see the uptime resetting) this could happen with a bad power injector.

The nano has a limited beamwidth of around 53-55 degrees in the horizontal plane (depending on polarity) and 25 degrees in the vertical plane (depending on polarity)  and about a 15dbi FB ratio  meaning if your not on the right aim or if the wind blows the node made fall off off the list if not securely mounted.

It could also be polarity if you are running different than the rest of the group.

To be clear, the main reason to put BBHN on a laptop is so the laptop can be a mesh access point in a deployment, not so it can act as a "relay" mesh node for other mesh nodes.

In actual field operations, we've used multiple mesh nodes at various "stations" in something like a field day location.  Then we connect laptops to the mesh nodes with wires.  It would add quite a bit of ease of operation if the laptops didn't have to be tethered to the mesh node.

Yes, having an additional wireless router at each mesh node "hotspot" does give you this capability to some extent.  However, that does require additional equipment, power supply, cabling, etc.  It would be nice to reduce the amount of things you have to carry. 

Also, if you are doing some sort of work with your mesh node network, you often find you need to travel around with a laptop, a mesh node, and a power source.  It would be much easier if the laptop was a mesh node.

I think the preferred method for this at this time is that you use a local Access Point at the deployment to allow this access.  This will allow you to bring in users locally without them needing extra software.

Just loading onto a laptop wouldn't really solve that many issues (that I can see personally ) as you still would likely need an external wifi device and antenna because onboard antenna and power are way below what we need for a network like this in all practical field deployments to date.

Some may find a use for some of the external USB dongles that do have an antenna port, you would be tied down and you wouldn't be able to provide mesh to others locally that needed it like you could with a standard WIFI access point to a home network unless you setup the laptop to be an AP as well (not sure that can even be done in Windows off hand I've never had a need to investigate it)

Though it is possible you are seeing something to the deployment that I am not.

"It would be really nice if we had a simple way to take a windows laptop and hook it wirelessly into a BBHN mesh network.  It could be really useful at emergency deployments.  To get the most use out of it, we'd probably need it to be a fairly simple install, though."

>Setting up a Raspberry with asterisk server on node-100, Linksys pap2 ata on node 103 and 101. I can dial ext 7103 from 7101 (both directions actually) analog phone connected to the ata rings, but no audio is heard. I need a little help solving the issue. Any ideas on the fix??

73 de mike

Here is what I started with.

Here are the end results.

as you can see I found a picture function in the forum.. :)

This box is also my first attempt at painting Camouflage onto something. It did not turn out as well as I had hope it would. but I thought it was a good start.. :)

Enjoy

KD6VZQ -- Tracy

06:20:01 up 1 day, 1:07, load average: 0.14, 0.04, 0.01 with the battery reading ~3.65v

I ran a cron job to output the uptime every 5 minutes to a text file to monitor it. So all I had to do was "tail" it to get the last one when I re powered it on house current.

This is a v3 WRT54G router I have a few others here along with some motorola ones that are support.

I suspect that the battery wasn't fully charged when I started this ... my fault on that thinking that the battery would be shipped fully charged.

So off to charge the other one I received and making sure it is fully charged before starting the next test

This node was active on the mesh in house (5 nodes with a gateway) test but had no Lan connected clients to this one only moving data via wifi.

I see there is a snmpd daemon in the package list might have to add those to the nodes and see the throughput and other over time to see if that affects the battery also.

more to follow.

Hey, I understand some of those words. 

cygwin is a very neat idea.  I used to run that, but haven't run it in a while.  I currently run a Windoze box and segregate many tasks into a couple of Linux Mint VMs.  It's nice to know that the stuff in one VM can't mess with my machine, and that my "immutable" VM is always starting from the same Linux image.

Still probably way above my skill level. 

It would be really nice if we had a simple way to take a windows laptop and hook it wirelessly into a BBHN mesh network.  It could be really useful at emergency deployments.  To get the most use out of it, we'd probably need it to be a fairly simple install, though.

reposted to VOIP

73 de mike

VMWARE:

All have been Intel based (I phased out my last AMD box back in December)

HosOS: ESXI Guest OS: 2x Ubuntu  1x OpenWRT (OpenWRT is what is run on by the nodes themselves.. I should disclaim they have been wire only protocol compatible as I have not tested wifi as I don't have stray wifi dongles but I would expect it to work as we don't do any low level RF)  

Windows:

This is a tough one, you could get it done with a virtual system (one of the free ones vmware or virtualbox or similar) and treat the VM as a physical router  OR you could build it into a native binary (my preference)  which basically makes it a Linux box, or one could use cygwin to compile a new binary (which the make file seems to imply still works) --- I don't have a cygwin lab sitting around anymore to test with.  --- I would think this would be the better method, windows uses enough resources already no need to double down on it by throwing a VM into the mix using up more resources..

Nothing that has been done to date requires any low level access (though a new feature I'm looking at will take some low level access)  a USB dongle through to a guest machine should work however.  This would likely take more effort than most users will be experienced to do.  Even as a professional  external devices are a pain in virtual setups (mostly in the 'map this device to machine' standpoint)

Good news.  After I stopped trying to fix this on my MAC, I switched over to my PC and used a program called Vigor Router Tools from DrayTek.  Worked like a charm.   Youtube was a big help.